VDT Film Breakdown - Overall Character Development

One of the best things about fantasy, I do believe, is the fact that a well-written fantasy novel can indeed be more realistic than a book set in the real world.
Why? Well, it's quite simple. The fact that the world in which the novel is set is so surreal means that for the tale to be believeable, each of the characters must be 100% relatable, with the same thought processes as ourselves. Because a fantasy world is so far from our reality, the characters must be especially close to it.
They may be fighting a dragon, or sailing to the end of the world, or running away from a host of nightmarish creatures, yet the fact that the characters act the way we might in the same situation makes us believe every word the story is saying. It intrigues us to see everyday people who are very similar to us face adverseries we will never have to face (such as dragons) and overcome everyday things we all have to face (such as lack of confidence). It is this mixture of the unbelievable and the believable that makes fantasy so entertaining.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons I was not a fan of VDT when I saw it on DVD. All the sets were absolutely gorgeous, many of them depicting Narnia very close to what I had imagined, but the lack of character development throughout the film was pitiful. Shallow character arcs with terrible dialouge made for a film that was visually stunning, but lacked any connection to reality.
Over the next while, I'll be going into detail over each of the characters in VDT and how they fell short of the characters C.S. Lewis wrote about in his novel.
I realise I haven't been around for AGES, and I really do apologise for this. But I've been learning how to be diligent lately, putting church, family, violin and school in  front of my hobbies.
I've also discovered an amazing fantasy series, called 'The Wheel of Time'. I just finished the first book, 'The Eye of the World' this morning. All the elements of a great fantasy book are right there, including... yes, you guessed it, incredibly believable main characters. The series is an exceedingly long one; the first book was almost 800 pages and so far there are 13 in the series (a fourteenth coming out this December, I'm told), but 'The Eye of the World' was very easy to read, and with about 30 minutes of reading each day, I managed to finish it in about a month. I'll be sure to dedicate a whole post to it later.
I hope you all haven't given up on me just yet!
Signing off,
~SON

P.S. If anyone has a preference to which charaver they would prefer to be analysed first, feel free to comment. :)

VDT - Second Thoughts

So it's been about five months since Voyage of the Dawn Treader came out in the cinemas. A couple of weeks ago my brother, Sir Lipine, and I borrowed the DVD and rewatched it. Our thoughts, now it wasn't on the big screen?
Well, there's no easy way to say this, so I'd better just get this out of me. We thought it was pathetic. Most opinions we had of the film in the cinemas were completely washed away, leaving only disappointment their place. We so wanted this film to be great, to capture the heart of my favourite book, but once we saw it on DVD we could no longer deny that this was a terrible adaptaion and a terrible film.
For the next while or so, in an effort to keep myself blogging more often, I'm going to write small posts covering in detail different aspects in the film. I'll have a post for the plot, a post for each of the characters and a post for each of the themes. After this, I'll do a sum up of all these things and the way they all impact on the overall film.
That's the plan, anyway. :)
~SON

Of Kings and Tantrums

Greetings, Bookworms!

So we come, as we inevitably must, to yet another period of my life where I have not the motivation to write another review, but know that I have to show my faithful bookworms I still exist. That is why I am introducing a new segment, called ‘Random Opinion’. Basically, it serves as a way for me to voice a certain opinion of mine that has been boiling away inside of me for a while, without having to do all the research necessary for a review. Tell me what you think about these segments: mindless vents or interesting insights? (For the record, they basically are mindless vents. If you like them, that’s a big bonus for me!)

The subject of this mindless ve- I mean, random opinion, is the character development of kings in books.

Now, as someone who loves writing, I have been through the stage of wanting all the good guys in my stories to be flawless. It’s one of the reasons I often wince when reading stories I wrote when I was in primary and early high school. Back then, I thought that if you had a great, exciting plot, everyone would like your stories. Thankfully, my eyes were gradually opened to the truth: your narrative is only as good as your characters.

Back then, in my early writing years when people deemed me too young to receive proper criticism, such as “Your story isn’t as great as you think it is,” (come to think of it, at that age I probably wouldn’t have received that very well- I just wanted to be told that my stories were good) I thought that a good character was one that was good at everything, who was always kind and knew all the right things to say. It’s a good thing that I was never one for romance, because that would have been just painful.

It was only when I was about 14 (pretty late, I know, but better late than never, huh?) that I realised that really good characters are ones that have flaws. Characters that have struggles, fears, tempers and faults they have to get over in order to do a set task. I saw that people don’t want to read about perfect characters leading perfect lives; they want to read about real characters going through real struggles: characters that we all, being humans, can relate to.

I had suddenly entered into a whole new dimension of writing: one where you don’t just enjoy it because of the erotic excitement of creating an amazing plot full of so many twists it makes you dizzy, but because there is a genuine joy in discovering your characters’ strengths and weaknesses, and journeying with them as they overcome their struggles. It’s like meeting new people: at first, you don’t really know them that well. But as you continue to watch them, you begin to get an idea of who they are, with all their complexities and mannerisms. Gradually, they grow on you until a deep friendship is formed, and you get excited because you know who they are at the beginning of the story and the changed person they’re going to be at the end of the story and you’re going to be there every step of the way to watch them grow into that person.

It’s your job to then introduce others to the amazing new people you’ve met, to share the sheer delight you’ve found in watching these characters mature before you through words. That is the joy and challenge of writing I have discovered.

Now, I deeply love stories about ordinary people leading ordinary lives being thrown into situations where they suddenly have to be courageous, strong and do things they never imagined they could do, where they then discover that they are not ordinary; they are, in fact, extraordinary. This is one of the many reasons my favourite book of all time happens to be ‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ by C.S. Lewis. This is a delightful tale of discovery: both through literal exploration of uncharted waters and each character’s personal voyage. These two separate aspects of the story merge together at the end of the book, where both journeys come together in the climax: meeting Aslan at world’s end.

I could go on for pages and pages about how each character grows throughout this amazing book, but I will spare you. There are places such as NarniaWeb to let out such observations gradually so that friends and family are spared from people such as myself never shutting up about the wonders of Narnia.

I will restrain myself enough to concentrate on one character in particular- given the topic of this particular ‘random opinion’, can you guess who that is? If you guessed Edmund, take off 50 points. If I was writing a segment on him in relation to VDT, I would name it more along the lines of ‘Of kings and the Midas conspiracy’. Besides, most of his character development is in LWW. Duh. If you guessed Peter, take off 100 points. Yes, in movie-verse PC he is very good at throwing tantrums, but he isn’t even in VDT. Get your facts straight!

No, I am talking about Caspian! You see, Lewis acknowledged that once someone becomes a king, they are by no means perfect. Even three years after he is crowned, when VDT takes place, Caspian still has important things to learn, and the book focuses a lot on how this king of Narnia matures from a boy used to having his orders followed to a man who realises it is not through his experience he can ever be worthy of ruling Narnia, but by the grace and guidance of Aslan.

Of course, he does not suddenly realise this. This wisdom comes through him making many mistakes, and at the end of the book throwing a massive tantrum, after which Aslan gives him a stern talking to. This is the major character development scene for Caspian, and you know what annoyed me about the movie? THEY LEFT IT OUT!!!

The whole movie, Caspian is this guy who doesn’t make mistakes. Yes, it saves time, but at what price? The only slight character development involves no tantrums whatsoever. To put it in a nutshell, from Caspian’s point of view: “To make up for losing my fake Spanish accent, I must brood over my father's death and come to the conclusion he thinks I am a failure (even though he’s dead) to show everyone I still have traces of Inigo Montoya syndrome so they will feel sorry for me!” That is the only reason I can think of as to why the filmmakers would create such a shallow character arc, and even there I can’t really see the logic behind it!

Book-verse Caspian was someone many people look up to, myself included. In fact, he was a character I unknowingly based my main character, King Henry, on (King Henry the Tenth, in case you’re wondering) in my latest NaNoWriMo novel.

To give you some background info on my pal, Henry, he was born a mischievous prince who had a palace at his disposal to play all the practical jokes he could ever wish. However, when he was about 16, his parents were murdered and he was taken captive by a usurper, with only his best friend for company. Five years later, the usurper was overthrown and he was given back the throne.

Imagine what it would be like for a twenty-one year old who is still used to being a spoilt kid suddenly having the enormous responsibility of being king thrown upon him, and you have Henry.  Watching him grow from a childish, immature (but well meaning) boy into a mature and patient king through many tantrums, arguments, and moments of reflections asking himself where he went wrong has been so much fun, and now he’s my best friend trapped in the confines of my mind and ink and paper.

What I never realised when I was writing about Henry was that he would never have existed if it were not for Caspian’s tantrum scene at the end of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader book.

This is the reason why I was so annoyed they did not include Caspian’s tantrum in the movie. Kings have their moments of imperfection, just like the rest of us. And we all love characters we can relate to. Not everyone who sees the movie will know the horrible pain of losing a father, but everyone who sees the movie will know what it’s like to think you’re right when in actual fact you’re wrong, and to make an idiot of yourself when doing so. Audiences need to see all the characters work through their problems in all of their embarrassing glory!

Long live the character development of fictional kings!!!

(For the record, VDT is still an awesome movie with a much clearer message than the other two. I would highly recommend it to everyone.)

(Feel free to comment)

Voyage to the Cinema

*Warning, mild spoilers*

Greetings! I assume you have visited this blog to hear a technical, in depth review of the film 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader'. This is the first film review I have ever written, so feedback would be very much appreciated!

So, this is my first post. Started up this blog from request of someone on NarniaWeb. Don't know if anyone's going to read it, but you never know until you try, hey?

So, I dragged 8 friends of mine to the cinema to see VDT with me. I felt extremely sorry for the friends who were sitting either side of me, because throughout the whole movie I was whispering to them and muttering under my breath everything that deviated from the book. I did warn them before hand, though...

Anyway, without further ado...

Overall position of the film:

I would say that VDT is somewhere between LWW and PC, from a Narnia fan's perspective. Not quite as good as LWW, but so much better than PC. A HECK OF A LOT better than the trailers!!! The trailer showed pretty much the worst parts of the film, so if you see it, rest knowing that it will at least be better than the trailers. As far as films go, it is quite a good flick. As far as Narnian films go, I think it did the film series justice.

Plot:

Okay, they changed the plot around quite a bit. At first, they're looking for the 7 lords, but then there's the whole 'evil mist' thing related to Dark Island that takes up most of the movie. Which, to me, was rather annoying. It ruined the wonderful realness and episodic nature of the book. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand why they did it like that, after all, it's supposed to be a Hollywood movie, and it needs to have a plot and all. But to me, it was almost as if it was too 'epic', if you get what I mean. They tried too hard to come up with an action packed plot, and it ruined the thing a bit. Voyage of the Dawn Treader, if you think about it, is such a unique book. It has no dominant bad guy, and no huge battles or anything, but nevertheless it has such a wonderful storyline and is filled with as much adventure as you could ever want! (This is me agreeing with someone whose post I cannot locate somewhere on NarniaWeb) Really, if you ask me, the story didn't need to be changed. The error the filmmakers made was that they destroyed the book's uniqueness and tried to make VDT more like other fantasy films. And were very unoriginal in doing that, I must confess. Still, I suppose it could have been worse. The battle at the end of the movie was perhaps unnecessary, but admittedly very exciting. It had me sitting on the edge of my seat!

Altogether, the plot changes did annoy me quite a bit. However, they weren't unbearable and acheived the filmmakers' aim of making the story less 'episodic'.

Characters:

Caspian- Lost the Spanish accent! Yay! Now he just needs to get a haircut! Of course, he had a beard in this movie. If you ask me, that just made him look like a woman with facial hair, but some of my friends (Fan girls, cough cough) did not share the same opinion. About his actual character, they made him seem a lot more composed than he was in the book, with hardly any faults. This is one of the main points they slipped up on in the movie! Probably the main human character in the book is Caspian, and I love how VDT is a story about him learning what it is to be a king. The movie did not have this, which I was very annoyed with and will discuss in more detail later in this review. However, the friendship he forms with Edmund, Eustace and Lucy by the end of the movie I liked very much. I found that even though I am of the opinion that they should have cast a younger, blonder Caspian with shorter hair, I liked Ben Barnes as Caspian in this movie better than I did in PC.

Edmund- Not actually as much of a jerk as he was made out to be in the trailers. Still a jerk at times, but overall his character was not too bad. Nothing like Peter in PC, I'm glad to say. He's been second in command all his life, and now he wants to be in charge a bit more. Fortunately, as was in the book, he and Caspian only have one fight, on Deathwater Island. After that, he and Caspian get along well to the point that they are like brothers, which is quite sweet. Their friendship grows as strong as Eustace and Reep's, which is quite a strong bond. Overall, I think that while it is slightly illogical for Edmund to go from someone so strong in their resolve to follow Aslan (PC) to someone who is tempted by gold and the White Witch again (VDT), Edmund is a very believable character in this film, and by the end he is again a favourite character.

Lucy- The whole thing about Lucy in this movie is that she does not think she is as pretty as Susan and she wishes she was. They sort of expanded on her desire to be like Susan in one scene of the book to make it most of the scenes in the movie. It's a bit cringey at the beginning, I must admit. But after that, it's fairly believable. Not that I have to like her being like that, but as they are making her a few years older in the movie than she was in the book, I can see why they thought it was a logical decision. In the movie, the spell is not to make her beautiful, but to actually make her into the person she wants to look like. The problem in the movie is that she actually says the spell, and dreams of what would have happened. Not only is this unoriginal (a dream? Come on!), but it destroys the point, because she has already recited the spell and there is supposedly no turning back from there. So they probably should have showed her what would have happened had she recited the spell before she recited the spell. By the end of the movie, however, she is back to the Lucy we all know and love.

Reepicheep- I was a bit disappointed with Reep's role in this movie, I must say. Being my absolute favourite character in all seven books (apart from Aslan, which is a given), I was hoping for this movie to focus quite a lot on Reepicheep and his yearning to sail to the end of the world and to find Aslan's country. However, they did not spend nearly enough time on this and instead spent a lot more time on him being Eustace's mentor and friend. I did not mind the mentor part, because it really shows Reep's decency and it was very in character of him, but I was just a bit disappointed about them not making him that enthusiastic about sailing to the end of the world. *sigh*

Aslan- Slightly disappointing. It seemed so corny whenever Aslan came and talked, as if he was some wise tribal leader giving out fortune cookies or something. I found myself even wincing in some places, it seemed so forced. But the movie was redeemed at the end, when pretty much everything he said to the Pevensies and Eustace was taken directly from the book. I would have liked for Aslan as a lamb to make an appearance, but I admit that may have slightly confused people who haven't read the books.

Eustace: I have left Eustace for last because, quite frankly, he was my favourite. Some of my friends came out of the cinema saying, "I hated the actor that played Eustace!" (of course, they hadn't read the book). I strongly argued against them, because he was every bit as beastly and arrogant and annoying and comical as I imagined him when I read the book as an eight year old. Will Poulter was perfect for the part and played him brilliantly. He spent a bit longer as a dragon than I would have liked, but again, that's just Hollywood. It's worth seeing the movie simply for the sake of watching a childhood memory come to life before your eyes! Hooray, Will!

Themes:

What they did with the themes was slightly weird, I thought. The main theme was temptation. Thing is, that wasn't exactly the biggest theme in the book. I thought that the most prominent themes in the book were redemption, discovery and finding Aslan, so I was quite surprised that they had focussed on temptation. However, it fit in well with the story and Dark Island and everything, so thematically it wasn't too bad, I suppose. And they still kept the other themes in there.

Spirital stuff:

Well, this morning when I was at church, I was talking to some of the elders who had seen the movie bit had not read the book. To my excitement, they had picked up many spiritual aspects of the film as a result of the plot changes! Stuff like the 'star messenger' and 'the beast'. So they thought it was a very spiritual movie. They were quite surprised when I informed them that none of this was in the book. I wonder if the filmmakers were actually aware they were including those things...

Anyway, for me, the movie did have quite a few Christian messages, similar to the book. It emphasised that Aslan can help you overcome temptation, that only He can help you out of your sin/blindness (grace is given, not earned- go Douglas Greasham!) and that He has another name in our world (YES!)

Props/scenery:

The dawn treader was absolutely amazing! It was precisely how I imagined it and I honestly can't think of any changes they could have made... except for perhaps having a rampant lion on the sail rather than some strange design. BUT THE SAIL WAS PURPLE!!! Thank goodness for that! The rest of the scenery was quite good, I'll say. I loved the Magician's Island especially, with the Dufflepuds, the garden and the library that I'll admit made me drool slightly.

Music:

Okay, so I read this interview that someone had with David Arnold about a month ago, and it made me so excited about VDT's score. He was so humble and he had read the book as extra research for inspiration. Did the music live up to my expectations? No. For most of the movie, I didn't even notice the music. When I did, I wasn't blown away by it. David Arnold is a nice guy, but they should have got Harry to do the score again. It would have probably been more original than this. The end song for the credits, 'There's a place for us', was not particularly original or exciting. Overall, it was not bad but not particularly good either.

Things I really wasn't happy about:

The thing I was probably most disappointed about in the movie was a certain scene they did not include, which was where Caspian wants to go with Lucy and Edmund and Eustace to wherever they're going, and everyone tells him he can't come, and he has a tanty but then Aslan speaks to him and he sees how childish he's been and apologises. That is one of my favourite scenes in the book, and yet they do not include it!

The scripting was really where it all went wrong, I think. Sometimes the way the characters interact with one another just seems fake and unnatural and put-on. It leaves so much to be desired, I reckon, personally. Lewis' dialogue would have done much better.

The editing also was not really at its best. It made some scenes awkward and others confusing. Most of my friends I went to see it with had not read the book and were very confused in some parts because the editors cut out important dialogue and scenes.

They cut out Ramandu! How could they?

Things I was happy about:

No kissing! YAY!!!!!!!!!!

Eustace

The Dawn Treader

Friendships formed (Lucy with MLG, Caspian and Edmund and Eustace and Reep)

Set up for Silver Chair at the end of the movie

Aslan at the World's end

Altogether:

I know that my review has been quite critical, but it really is quite an amazing movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's exciting, adventurous, and has still, despite everything, managed to carry with it the spirit of my favourite book. Does it do the book justice? No. Nothing ever will. Is it worth watching? Yes, absolutely.